Posts tagged 'Dehydrating'

Now it's time to peel them off and flip them over, a process helped by having those overhanging lips. They'll still be quite squidgy but with care they should peel off cleanly with flat shiny bottoms, if they don't then they need a bit longer.

After the flip you have to ask yourself which you prefer - bendy or stiff. Either way, don't bother with the drying sheet, it's not necessary. Another 8 hours should produce wedges which, when cooled, are bendy and chewy, if you like a bit of a crunch go for 12 hours instead. Bear in mind that they'll still be bendy until they are cool, so don't be tempted to go beyond dehydration and end up with incineration.

They should end up something like this:

Bendy on the left, stiff on the right

Now, if you can resist scoffing them, you can bag them up and store them.

Or you can experiment with them - I've been quartering them and adding them to pots of Oats2Go porage, they rehydrate well when the hot water is added.

There are a couple of important bits here - which oil to use on your banana, and how to apply it. The rest is innuendo-free.

After trying a few oils, I've found that coconut oil is the best option. There are quite a few options available in supermarkets, the best I've used so far is Morrisons Liquid Coconut Oil Blend which has 80% fractionated coconut oil, the rest is sunflower oil and some flavouring. It's cheap, easy to use, and a small bottle lasts for ages - and it's the magic ingredient. Don't be tempted to use the waxy "solid" oil - it's a pig to work with and doesn't yield better results. During the drying process most of the oil is driven off, leaving only a hint of coconut which lets the banana taste come through really well. As a side benefit, it makes the house smell nice during the drying phase.

The oiling method is quite simple, the main thing is to get full coverage of your banana using the smallest possible amount of oil. Peel the over-ripe bananas (if they are starting to blacken that's a good thing) and use a brush or clean fingers to apply the tiniest amount of oil to the surface of them. Leave them until the oil has soaked in, which usually takes about 10 minutes tops - if it takes any longer you've used too much oil.

Of course, the skins and any bad bits go into one of the compost bins to feed next year's spuds. Nothing's wasted.

Peeled

Oiled

After that, use a chopping knife to cut the bananas into suitably sized/shaped chunks. I prefer angled cuts because having an overhanging "lip" on the chunks helps when peeling them off the drying sheet during the drying process - more on that later.

Chopped

Put the chunks onto drying sheets in the dehydrator trays. Nowadays we use proper silicone sheets but baking parchment sheets work just as well. Avoid using greaseproof paper - it tears and leaves bits stuck to the chunks. Don't be tempted to oil the sheets, the chunks will stick hard and will be pulled apart when it's time to peel them off to turn them over. In theory, after the drying process has started, the oil helps a skin to form on the uncut surface. The soaked-in oil then has to migrate through the inside, forcing the internal water out of the oil-free cut faces.

Now you should put the kettle on and make yourself a well-deserved cuppa while leaving the trays uncovered until the chunks just start to blacken, as cut bananas do. 10 - 20 minutes should be enough, much depends on how over-ripe they are and how warm the room is.

Blackening

After that, stick the trays in the dehydrator at about 70C for 12 hours, re-ordering the stack every so often to ensure that they each get equal amounts of heating and drying.

Earlier this year, after stumbling across the magic ingredient needed to make truly excellent dried bananas which are neither hard nor soft nor burned nor crumbly nor sticky, I'd made a few small batches to find the best setup for our latest dehydrator and the best dosing of oil. I'd been consuming the output ever since, as quick snacks and as walking-fuel, and it was becoming clear that I'd need to make more fairly soon.

This evening saw us at Asda doing the weekly shopping, and by strange chance they had bags of shelf-reject bananas at just the right level of over-ripeness, all on offer at one-third the normal price. Never one to walk away from a bargain without due consideration, I swung this pile of 36 for the stupidly-low price of just £1.54:

16 of them are already prepped and in the machine, another 16 will be fed in when there is room for them. The remaining four were perfects and are now in the fruit-bowl for general consumption.

I'll post a few more pics of the method and the product when they're a bit further along.

Last time we went shopping I nabbed a small pack of mixed fish from the "nearly out-of-date" shelf at the local supermarket, it seemed just right for knocking out another batch of dried food. The pack contained 4oz each of salmon, cod and smoked haddock, all in good condition. During a spare half-hour this morning I used it to make another variant of fish risotto, I had to adjust the standard recipe as follows:

1 onion, finely chopped >>> 1 larger onion

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 stock cube (veg or fish) >>> 4 level tsp stock powder

0.85L / 1.5 pints boiling water >>> 2 pints

0.25kg / 9oz risotto rice (risotto, arborio and carnaroli are best, long-grain will do at a push but the results aren’t as good, any other rice just doesn’t work) >>> 12oz

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